Barn Quilts

Making quilts out of wood!

When I first lived in Washington and had no friends, my sister encouraged me to visit a quilt store to start a small project. It was great advice because through my first little wall quilt, I eventually met a friend, Lori, who invited me to ride with her to Sisters, Oregon for the world’s largest outdoor quilt show. Visitors come from all 50 states and even foreign nations to see more than a thousand beautiful quilts hung up outside along the main street of this picturesque mountain town.

The three sisters mountains are not far away from this sleepy town. Lori and I had a beautiful trip that inspired me to spend more time quilting and also began a wonderful friendship.So when I saw these pictures of barn quilts on Pinterest, I fell in love and had to make one.

For practice, I started with a smaller one, (2′ x 2′) to put by my front door. Here is what it looks like.

It was a lot of fun and pretty easy to make. I used 1/4″ plywood, craft paint, frog tape, and polyurethane. These small ones would also look good on a garden shed, garage, fence and of course a barn. When we get closer to having most of the remodel done, I will paint our front door black, hang some black shutters and this barn quilt. By why did I chose these colors for my barn quilt, you ask? Because our new roof is getting put on and it is . . . BLUE!

We love how it is turning out. The back part of the house where the new addition was just rebuilt, will get a blue roof on it after the back porch walls and roof have been completed. Here is Steve, our contractor, working on the new addition roof. If you look where he is standing you can see the old roof line and how it has been changed.

Here is what it looks like from the inside. My kitchen sink will go where the double windows are on the left in the picture below. The room is now open all the way to the living room and front door, (which is open in this picture). We will leave the kitchen/dining room ceiling open and clad the trusses in wood.

Here are the beginning stages of our sun room. We are putting in lots of windows to enjoy nature all around us. I think I will put my bed in this room and just live in it. My next barn quilt will actually be for the barn. Here is the design I will tackle next.

Don’t be afraid to try something new. Quilting gave me a great friend and allowed me to use my creativity. Now I can use this old skill to make something new. I can’t wait to make the bigger one for the barn and hang it.

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about me . . .

In 2014 we purchased a farmhouse built in 1897 on the plains of Kansas. We call it “The Noah Farm” because the name Noah means “rest”. This is the story of our restoration of this house, land, and our search for rest in the midst of chaos. We hope this blog will encourage you to dream big and also to find the inner rest of the soul that we all long for.